The busy summer season is almost upon us and issues have resurfaced again with EES checks, causing huge queues and missed flights in Spain and other EU countries. Some nations have agreed to suspend the checks over the summer, so what will Spain do?
EES passport checks were first introduced in October 2025, but EU countries had until April 10th 2026 to implement the fully implement the systems completely and become fully operational.
EES is the EU’s new Entry/Exit System, which has replaced traditional passport stamps and manual checks with automated kiosks, which gather biometric data such as fingerprints and photos. It essentially registers non-EU nationals travelling into and out of the Schengen Area.
Since EES, was first rolled out in Spain, our readers have reported some technical issues, long queues and delays, although in many cases the system appears to be working smoothly.
READ ALSO: ‘Not all EES machines work’ – Your views on the Entry/Exit System in Spain
The EES system will really be put to the test during the peak summer period, which will see millions travelling into and out of the bloc.
It’s only the beginning of June, but it seems that the problems with the EES systems have already resurfaced.
Recently over the May Bank Holiday in the UK, many passengers had to endure hour-long passport queues at many airports due to issues and holdups.
At Lanzarote’s César Manrique Airport in the Canary Islands, a technical failure affected dozens of passengers travelling to the Britain were unable to board their flights to leave the island.
A system outage at Menorca’s airport also caused long queues on the Friday before the May Bank holiday.
Whenever there are EES issues, they disproportionately affect passengers flying to and from the UK, given that the United Kingdom is the non-EU country with the highest volume of direct flights to Spain.
It’s not just in Spain where issues have occurred recently, however. Passengers in Milan missed their flights due to extra-long queues and CNN journalist Clarissa Ward issued a warning to travellers recently after she experienced chaos at Lisbon airport experiencing massive queues and ultimately missing her flight.
Several other European airlines warn that the new biometric check-in system is causing delays of up to three hours including those in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Greece.
Low-cost airline Wizz Air is advising that Britons should arrive at European airports three hours early due to EU border controls that are causing queues and missed flights.
“This situation, in the coming weeks and certainly during the peak summer months, is simply going to be unmanageable,” warned Olivier Jankovec, director of the European division of the Airports Council International (ACI).
“Our latest data from airports in 15 different countries shows that waiting times at border controls have increased significantly since the implementation of the EES; queues now typically last two to three hours, or even longer during peak periods,” the organisation reported.
Budget airline Ryanair has said it has already written to governments across the 29 EES countries, urging them to suspend the system until September, after the busy summer period.
The airline called upon the Spanish government to do the same and claimed that there had been recent problems at Lanzarote Airport, Tenerife South, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Reus, Málaga, and Alicante, saying that passengers at those airports are already experiencing “waiting times exceeding one to two hours.” The airline acknowledged that some passengers have missed their flights due to the situation.
“It makes no sense that countries, like Spain, are continuing to implement the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) when they are clearly not ready to do so. As a result of this half-baked system roll out, passengers are being forced to endure excessive passport control queues, and in some cases, missing flights. This May Bank Holiday weekend alone, passengers travelling to/from Spain were made suffer hour-long passport control queues,” Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon said.
Greece was the first country to respond to complaints from the airline and has already agreed to suspend EES checks for the summer season.
The European Commission, however, “denies its EES system is cause of airport queues” in Portugal, saying: “We are aware of the media reports and are in contact with Portugal, as with all member states, regarding the EES implementation,” adding that “several causes can create delays, which are often unrelated to the operation of the EES and this is also the case here (in Portugal)”.
As a result of the issue, the European Commission has recently confirmed that Portugal will temporarily suspend the collection of biometric data whenever justified, in order to avoid extra queues as well.
It’s unclear yet as to whether Spain will follow suit or not, as neither Spanish national police -tasked with enforcing EES – or the country’s Interior Ministry have made any public comment since EES checks began.
But pressure is mounting, and it’s at times of high volumes of air traffic such as the summer period when flights land one after another and the EES system is truly put to the test.
The Canary government has called for an urgent solution from Pedro Sánchez’s government to the “unsustainable” for British passengers at Tenerife South Airport in particular.
Spanish hoteliers and tourism bosses have also called for more police and fully functioning passport control machines at Spanish airports to fix the problem of long waits for Brits and other non-EU tourists since the rollout of the EU’s new Entry Exit System.
Furthermore, the Alicante branch of Spain’s conservative People’s Party has called on the national government to act, stating that “Spain cannot afford to experience airport gridlock again due to a lack of foresight. It has happened before, and the government cannot turn a blind eye while the same mistakes are repeated”.
As for Spanish airport operator Aena, they have admitted to some EES growing pains but have said most of the e-gate problems are happening elsewhere in the EU.
“We have provided the equipment in Spain, but the essential equipment, and the one experiencing difficulties, is located in Europe,” Aena executive vice president Javier Marín said earlier this year, while indicating that the Spanish Ministry of the Interior is in contact with European officials.
The airport chief added that Aena lacks the capacity to increase the number of national police officers at the airports they operate.
Remember, if you’re a resident in Spain you don’t need to go through the EES system, it’s only for non-EU nationals who don’t reside in the EU.
